Sir Colin and chief fund-raiser Vivien Duffield urged others to continue to be generous stressing the need for more money in the future

Sir Colin and chief fund-raiser Vivien Duffield urged others to continue to be generous, stressing the need for more money in the future.
But this was the evening to forget issues of funding and concentrate at long last on the talents on stage, in a performance broadcast live on the BBC. Sadly, the first half of the Royal Gala reopening failed to exploit those talents and the large television audience. THE ROYAL Opera House chairman, Sir Colin Southgate, came on stage to welcome the Queen The House, he said, had undergone “a technical revolution” At precisely that moment his microphone failed. An EU plan to reduce trade barriers to the world’s poorest countries is close to agreement.

But e-commerce, one of the newest areas, is also threatening to become a problem. The aim is to kick off a three-year negotiating round, to end in a new treaty with rules to break down global barriers.Many of the developing nations suspect the US deliberately let Tuesday’s protests get out of hand. Delegates were aghast at the failure of police to create a cordon around the negotiators, allowing many to be left isolated in small enclaves. Though some delegates say the protests have increased the pressure for a deal, and warmed relations between officials who spent Tuesday being teargassed together, many are furious at how the US allowed the conference to degenerate into chaos.. One key issue is that the EU insists the WTO must recognise that agriculture is different from other goods, something which the exporters reject.

An EU working paper released yesterday relaxes its stance slightly, and may set a path for a compromise.The other sensitive issues are the environment and the implementation of the last trade round, where developing nations say that too little has been achieved. Egypt and India are competing diplomatically for leadership of the developing countries at the conference, and some countries will see any British initiative as imperialist “divide and rule” by other means. But at the same time, if there is no compromise before the meeting’s scheduled end on Friday then the conference may fail.The other critical issue at the summit is agriculture, where Europe is at odds with the farm-exporting nations like Canada and Australia, and to a lesser extent the US. Indian delegation members say it will be impossible for the country to return home with any agreement that links labour and the WTO.But the US, with pressure increasing from the unions and an election campaign just months away, cannot end the meeting without such a deal.Britain and Egypt have agreed a compromise plan that would allow the WTO to discuss labour standards with other organisations, without sanctions and with the possibility of new aid from the World Bank to help remedy the problem rather than sanctions. Then that working group should develop these core labour standards, and then they ought to be a part of every trade agreement, and ultimately I would favour a system in which sanctions would come for violating any provision of a trade agreement.”Most of the developing countries have reservations about labour standards, fearing that it is just Western protectionism in another form India, more than any country, rejects the idea completely. It also emerged that an anarchist group based in Britain is conducting a “virtual sit-in” to disrupt the WTOsummit, which is scheduled to finish tomorrow. But Scotland Yard and City of London police claimed the operation, which involved a thousand officers and cost some pounds 1.5m, was a success.Senior officers also said that both left and right-wing extremists were at the heart of the disturbances and may try to carry out “wildcat” actions in the near future.

In all, 40 people were arrested and 11 injured in the demonstration in which riot police fought running street battles with protesters near Euston station.
Three police officers were injured One, aged 32, remains in hospital. SIX PEOPLE, including a law student, have been charged in connection with the protest in London on Tuesday against the World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Seattle

Three of them appeared in court yesterday. “But we believe that there could be room for a fact-finding exercise in WTO, designed to address the full range of biotech-related issues, notably in the fields of consumer development, health and environment policy,” said a Commission statement issued after the row broke out into the open.There were strict conditions on the offer, they said, including that it should only be a fact-finding exercise, that UN negotiations on biosafety should also be considered, and that no deal on biotech could be agreed until every other trade issue was resolved.”That is the sense of the relevant paragraph of a much longer document which Europe is discussing with like-minded countries,” said the Commission.. A split like this, while hardly uncommon in negotiations where the Commission represents the EU members, is highly damaging coming at such a delicate position in the talks.The European Commission insisted that its offer was completely different from parallel plans advanced by America for biotechnology. “Member states can say what they like,” said one Commission official.
A leaked EU document says that the EU and its member states “agree to establish a working party with a fact-finding mandate on the relationship between trade, development, health, consumer and environmental issues in the area of modern biotechnology.”First, the group would examine the issues, and then it would report to trade negotiators on how GM foods could be treated under international trade rules.

“The initiative may reflect concessions made to Europe on other areas of farm trade,” said Duncan Gren of Cafod, the aid organisation.British officials denied that any such concessions had been made by ministers, saying that the support of EU member state would be required for such an initiative Commission sources rejected this. Both Stephen Byers, the trade minister, and Michael Meacher, the environment minister, were furious and insisted that the Commission did not have the backing of member states, but Commission officials said that the plan had already been agreed. British spokesmen said that they reject this completely, and a meeting of ministers was under way last night to clarify the issue. A NASTY split opened up between Britain and the European Commission at the World Trade Organisation summit last night over new EU plans that could make it easier for genetically modified food to come into the country. Britain and several other EU countries oppose plans to handle GM foods under the WTO, but the European Commission says that it has the authority to negotiate the plan at the Seattle trade meeting.